Akhôrahil

Big Shub-Niggurath vibes with that description.

What are you doing to make muskox hsunchen be different from Uncolings? Much of the material circumstances would seem to be similar, assuming they herd the muskox in arctic/subarctic climates. I lean towards area 2 - more northern, inland, and out of the way.

Some of the Ten Sons of Lodril?

Kinda queueing reading material up right now, I must confess...

I have literally opened that book once to one page, so that must have been the one, then! 🙂

I'm not sure where I saw it, but I really like the idea that loom houses are cubical and built halfway into the ground - basically, you start by digging out a half-cube in the ground (this is something the men can do, too!). Agree. And while tradition and runic resonance matter, there's probably not that big of a magical effect of having your house maximally square, especially not if it clashes with practicality. Some minor effort to keep it mostly kinda square goes a long way, and can be achieved easily the way you say. I would be unsurprised if the further you get out into the sticks, the more practicality determines form. For instance, I would assume that the entire reason for the longhouse is that it provides a lot of internal space while still using easier building techniques than achieving the same floor area in a square building? Also, when it's cold and up in the hills, keeping up the heating becomes a lot more important than maintaining traditional building styles, even if you think those are classier. This is why I like serious Nordic longhouses up in Talastar. In my Risklands campaign, I did describe Sartar as more of Switzerland and Talastar as more of Scandinavia when it comes to climate and styles, and I moved to more of a Nordic bronze age there (longhouses aren't just Viking - it's almost ridiculous how you have Danish longhouses for millennia with the same basic design idea, because it's just that good). Big fan of your Noricum suggestions for Sartar, too. That fits me a lot better than going all-out Mycene.

I was thinking more of more rustic and colder Talastar for this. D:LoD has longhouses, and I don't think it's been retconned.

I really like this Icelandic longhouse - it's a bit different from more southern ones, and you can really tell that this is someplace where you need to care about the climate (lots of stone, earth and turf). Plus it looks seriously defensible.

Moon Rock, for sure!

Also, she's kinda Molanni. I think.

What's the role of Talastar in the mid-to-late HeroWars, after the big raid against the Lunars and the deaths of Oddi and Ralzakark (and the destruction of much of the Bilini) around 1630? Related, do we have any snippets from or about the Bilinisaga outside of the box in Lords of Terror?

You don't have to attune regular MP storage crystals, I believe.

Even so, as long as your friends cast from their crystals, they will have all the MPs that they want.

You can do this for others by swapping around MP crystals. It means that given a very short break, everyone always have full MP. Considering the fairly slow normal MP regen and the fact that there an entire skill devoted to it, this does not seem intentional. This is the kind of thing that gives you 100 MP Sword Trances and the like, now only per combat instead of it being an actual effort. And breaking sorcery, isn't that like shooting fish in a barrel? 🙂

Their offspring being a bad-tempered, violently heroic man-wolverine with adamantine claws...

The Unicorn Emperor (or his replacement does). Does RWTSA? I don't know. Good from coming back from deaths, certainly. Final death, though? Does that word even mean something in that case?

A kind of workable synthesis might be if Harrek produces the Wolf-Bear as offspring with Dorasta somewhere in the future. Although if Harrek is the superhero incarnation of the Death rune, that might put his powers of procreation seriously in question...

It’s Ralzakark With The Scorpion Arm that he’s fighting, and we have a lot less evidence that he leaves Dorastor. And then of course it’s the whole thing where D:LoD is explicit that Oddi hands out Final Death to Ralzakark long before we get to the Monster Empire, so the entire thing is muddled.

A related question would be just how Dorastor could be rid of Chaos. Its origins is Arkat’s curse, altered through unknown means (Fertility returned, but is now Chaotic). That it could involve the rebirth of Dorasta, or something related to her offspring, might make sense, but it’s hard to tell when we can’t even tell quite what makes Dorastor a Chaotic in the first place. A returned Arkat lifting the curse would also seem feasible, although it’s possible it’s too late for that.

The wolf-bear is a mysterious entity as described in Dorastor: Land of Doom - the son of Dorasta and the prophesied cleanser of chaos. But what is it? 1) In Siberian mythology, a "wolf-bear" is a wolverine, which is also considered a channel to the spirit world. The myth could be taken just this literally. 2) Not only does Harrek the Berserker combine the aspects of wolf (Wolf Pirates) and bear (obviously), we also see him fighting Ralzakark (along with Argrath) on the Glorantha box cover (unclear when - anyone have an idea?). Under this interpretation, we shouldn't take the notion that he's Dorasta's son and sleeping within the Cleft of Dorasta literally . 3) This thread suggest the intersection of Zolan Zubar (as Cave Bear god) and the Telmori. Wild speculation welcome - it's not as though we have a lot to work with, here!

I think it's a bit more of a stretch because they (supposedly) don't have an utterly inhuman psychology.

Do you think this is actual caprice and fickleness, instead of this just how humans interpret principled adherence to a system of thought they don't understand? I'm not sure either way.

For RQ, do you think Draconic Illumination should use different rules than Rashoranic Illumination? That is, are they significantly different things, or merely two paths to the same outcome? To me, Draconic Illumination seems more "serious" and "deep" than the quick hack that is Rashoranic Illumination (I strongly doubt Draconic illuminates go around breaking cult rules willy-nilly).

I like it a lot - it's not good for when you sit down and read the text, but it tells you what terms are important, and it's fantastic for finding things on the page later.

The first rule of the Cult of Arkat is: you do not talk about the Cult of Arkat?